


How Did We End up Here?

by Youvebeenfandomed



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Tom Hiddleston - Fandom
Genre: Avengers Family, Avengers cast, F/M, Marvel - Freeform, Murder Mystery, Mystery, tom hiddleston - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 18:16:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20050438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Youvebeenfandomed/pseuds/Youvebeenfandomed
Summary: Rose Adams is an infamous investigative journalist whose life changed when she was invited to a question/answer session with the cast of The Avengers in 2012. When she and Tom Hiddleston find themselves in a tricky situation, she has no choice but to help a powerful congressman figure out who is after him and his daughter's lives. Of course, the mystery doesn't stop there. Rose and Tom find a large amount of cash hidden in an old house but no one to claim it. The road to the answer is tricky and dangerous. Rose must get herself and Tom, whom she finds herself slowly falling for, out of this situation by unravelling all the pieces of this mystery.





	How Did We End up Here?

I walked in wearing my ruby red sparkle sleeveless dress with red jeweled heels that could stab a bitch. My hair was long but still curled at the bottom to give it the perfect bounce. Every head turned to look at me as I took my seat at the very prestigious gala. It was the opening of Infinity War so all the stars were there. Only a select number of people had been invited and I, being a very highly praised journalist, had been. The event went by quickly. The Marvel stars stood on sage and introduced themselves. There was clapping, a couple of speeches, a few awards and then it was time to eat.  
The dining hall was across the lawn from the stage room. We all had assigned seats at the table and hustled to leave the stage. By the door, I could sight of Tom Hiddleston. I've been a fan of him since I watched The Avengers in 2013, so I decided to go up and talk to him. He was nice.We introduced ourselves and talked about his amazing performance as Loki and my amazing journalistic skills and how he was a fan of me as well. We were just about to exit the stage room when I heard a baby voice. I turned around and there stood a toddler. She was small and looked up at me with chocolate brown eyes. I looked around for her parents but I couldn’t see anyone looking for a baby. Tom asked me what we should do as if I was an expert in this situation.  
“I’m sorry, Tom,” I said. “I can’t leave this child until someone comes looking for her.”  
“Then I’m staying with you.” he replied.  
“Oh no, you don't have to do that. Really.”  
“I insist.” He said pushing his glasses up on his bearded face. His suit and tie were still crisp despite sitting on an uncomfortable chair for an hour.  
Everyone cleared out and soon it was just me, the child and Tom. I walked over to her and asked her if she knew where she was. She asked me to lift her up, but didn't seem inclined to answer any of my questions.  
“I’ll be right back,” Tom said. “I just have to inform my manager where I am.”  
“I’ll stay here in case her parents come by looking for her.”  
About ten seconds after Tom left, a big beefy looking dude came out of the shadows.  
“Hey sweetie!” he said looking at the baby in my arms. Then he looked at me. “Thank you so much for finding her! I was so worried.”  
This guy looked suspicious. He was giving me a bad feeling and the baby confirmed by beginning to cry when he held his arms out.  
“I’m sorry,” I said, turning slightly so the baby was farther away from him. “I think I should wait for my friend.”  
“But that’s my child!” the man repeated.  
By this time, the baby in my arms was holding on to me really tightly, and crying harder.  
“Really,” the man said moving closer to me. “You need to hand me my child before I call the police and have you arrested for kidnapping.”  
I was pretty confident that he wouldn’t call the cops so I said, “Maybe you should. They could sort this all out.”  
Again, he stepped closer to me. Luckily, just then Tom walked up to us.  
“What seems to be the problem?” He asked.  
The man was staring at me and I didn’t break eye-contact. “This man,” I said gesturing to the creepy man, “insists that this baby is his child. But the way she's crying and holding on to me suggests otherwise. He threatened to call the police, and I think that that’s a good idea.”  
Tom looked between me and the man before saying, “ We should call the police.” And he pulled out a phone and dialed the number. The man didn’t stick around to wait till the police came. He stayed until the end of the call and then ran.  
“Huh,” I said to the baby, “I wonder why he ran.” Tom laughed. Luckily the baby had stopped crying.  
“Maybe we should go inside,” I said to Tom. “It’s getting hot out here and I don’t think we should keep the baby out for this long.” Tom nodded and we went into the now-deserted hall. I sat down at one of the cleaned tables in the back.  
“I’ll get you two some water,” Tom said before leaving. I was sitting alone with the baby.  
“Who are you?” I asked smiling and bouncing her up and down on my knee. The last thing I wanted was for her to start crying again. She didn’t reply but she stuffed both her hands in her mouth.  
“Why are you here?” I wondered out loud. “I didn’t see anyone at the gala with a child. I didn’t even know children were allowed.”  
Again the baby didn’t reply. Suddenly I heard a loud crash, and turned around in my chair. Two men and one woman were standing there wearing the most fashionable black outfits I’d seen.  
“Get up,” said the woman.  
“You need to be quiet before you scare the child.” I said calmly. I knew where this was going and there was no way I was about to hand over a two-year old child to these people.  
“You may reconsider what you say to us once you realize what we have.” said the woman, then she pulled out a gun.  
“I assume you are not going to shoot the child.” I said calmly even though I was shaking.  
“No, but we have no problem shooting you.”  
“We called the police,” I said, and I immediately regretted it. I knew that letting them know that would just motivate them to make their decision to shoot me faster.  
One of the men whispered to the other two and they nodded.  
“Get up,” the woman gestured the “get-up” motion with her gun. “Come with us, and I won’t shoot either of you.”  
“Right,” I said. “Because I’m inclined to believe the woman with a gun.”However, I stood up and the baby started crying again. Where the hell was Tom? Was getting water really that difficult?  
“Really,” the woman said. “We know who you are, you could help us.  
“With what?”  
“Getting rich, of course.” the woman smiled. Just then we heard the cop sirens. She looked behind her. “You want to live don't you?” she asked, “and it’s clear that you aren’t going to leave the baby. Please don't make me hurt you. I really don’t want to shoot you. You’re holding the child, I don’t want the baby to get hurt.” She emphasized the word ‘hurt.’ I knew she would be willing to shoot no matter what. I could see two options, either the baby and I go with them, someone pays the ransom and we both get out alive- or, the police come in, they shoot us, and they get arrested which wouldn’t help us much, because we’d be dead.  
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll come with you, on one condition- you don’t touch the child. She stays with me.”  
“Fine.” The lady rolled her eyes, then she ushered us out the back door.  
We got outside but the police were nowhere to be seen. Tom was gone too. What the hell was happening?  
“The police were never coming dear.” the woman said seeing the perplexed look on my face.  
“Tom was in on this?” I asked. I felt like I was about to cry, but I wouldn’t show that kind of weakness. Besides the baby in my arms was doing more than enough crying for two.  
“That witless oaf? Please.” She scoffed, “no, he did his due diligence by calling the cops, we just interjected the call.”  
So they had been planning this for a while. “Where is he?” I asked. “He went to get water, there’s no way it should be taking this long. And what about the police sirens I heard?”  
“Oh, don’t you worry about Tom,” One of the men smiled, “He’s just where he needs to be. And as for the sirens-” He faltered and pressed a button on his keys and the car alarm started making the police siren.  
“Of course.” I mumbled.  
“I’m sorry, what was that?” The lady sounded smug.  
“Fuck you.” I said.  
“Language, there’s a baby in your arms.”  
We finally got to a car. The windows were tinted black so I couldn't see inside, but one of the men opened the door for me, and of course Tom was sitting there.  
I gaped at him as I got into the car. The baby had calmed down but she had her face buried in my shoulder.  
“What the hell?” I started, but Tom cut me off. “I had no choice.” He said. “I’m so sorry, they threatened to shoot you and the child and they said if I got in, they’d leave you alone.”  
I shook my head, “they threatened to shoot the child if we didn’t go with them. So I had no choice. Thank-you though, for trying to protect us.” He was sitting in the middle and i was sitting on the right behind the passenger seat. One of the two men was sitting behind the driver's seat while the other man, the one who claimed the baby was his daughter was driving and the woman sat in the passenger seat in the front. Tom reached over and squeezed my hand. “We’ll get out of this,” he said confidently. I nodded. “At least I’ll get the child out of this.” I whispered.  
“So who is this child anyway?” I asked to no one in particular. No one answered at first, but then the man sitting next to Tom said, “she’s the daughter of a politician.”  
“Yeah I figured she was the child of someone powerful,” I said sarcastically. “Which one though?” I said slowly indicating that I thought that unless I said it like that, they wouldn't understand.  
“Glenn Robbs,” the man responded. “He was at the gala.”  
“Shut up you idiot,” the woman had turned around and pointed the gun at him. “Why don't you just tell them the entire plan?”  
“What?” he asked innocently. “I didn't say anything important.”  
“Glenn Robbs.” I repeated, “Isn’t he a congressman?”  
“Yeah,” Tom replied, “Not a very good one though, is he?”  
“So, you’re in this for the money then?” I asked them.  
“Not really,” the man next to Tom said.  
“Shut up!” This time, both of them had yelled it together.  
“Sorry.”  
The rest of the car ride was silent. The baby fell asleep in my arms and I stared out the window for the first hour trying to remember the way we were going. Of course it was too easy though because during the second hour of the trip, they blindfolded us.  
After the blindfolds went on, we were still stuck in the car for about another hour. Finally, the car stopped and the woman (I assumed it was the woman because she had the gun) put the gun to my head and ushered my out of the car. I had to step out really carefully because I was still holding the baby. Evidently she had fallen asleep in the last hour because she started crying the minute I moved.  
“I’ll take the baby until we get inside.” the lady said.  
“Not a chance.” I replied.  
“Fine, risk tripping over a rock or something and bashing in her head along with yours.” She shrugged.  
She had a good point but I really didn’t want to hand the baby over.  
“Why don't you take off my blindfold then?”  
The lady and the two men laughed.  
“Didn’t think you would.” I muttered. “Fine, but I'm holding her hand.”  
As I handed the baby over, she started screaming loudly and in protest.  
“Oh shut the hell up.” I heard the lady say.  
A minute of walking, and I heard a door open.  
“You can take off your blindfolds now.” One of the men said. “I’ll take you to your room.”  
“We have a room?” Tom asked suspiciously.  
“It was set up for the baby,” the man shrugged. “But I suppose we could make some accommodations.”  
I took the child from the lady’s arms and she immediately stopped crying.Then, the man who was sitting next to Tom in the car lead us upstairs to a room on the right. The house was huge, probably a Victorian era mansion. The floorboards creaked and there were still chandeliers on the ceiling with elegant red velvet carpeting and old polished wood chairs and tables. Even in my elegant red gala dress, I felt underdressed. I felt like I should have been wearing a ball gown in the old house.  
The second he opened the door, sunlight flooded in. There was a singular crib in the middle of the room and a single wardrobe. There was also a door that I assumed lead to the bathroom. “I’ll bring in a bed.” The man said. “And there’s the bathroom.” He confirmed by pointing to the singular door.  
“Wouldn’t it just be easier to move the crib to a room where there’s a bed?” I pointed out and the man shut up.  
“I'll have to ask Molly.” He said and his eyes widened. “I meant Millie-no Mon-ocle.”  
“Monocle?” i asked.  
“Yes.” His eyes darted. “Listen, don't mention this little slip up to Mol-Monocle, ok?” he pleaded.  
“Wouldn't want you to get in trouble.” I said sarcastically.  
“Just move us to another room.” Tom rolled his eyes.  
“I still have to ask Monocle,” said the man. And he left the room leaving Tom and me standing in the small room with the baby in my arms, sucking on her hands silently. 

Apparently ‘Monocle’ agreed to put us is another room because a minute later the man came sprinting up the stairs and moved us to another room, this time with a large king bed with a canopy, a closet instead of a wardrobe, and a bathroom. He followed the crib in right after us, left the room and we heard a locking sound from the outside. He had locked us in.  
As soon as the door locked I turned to Tom.  
“So,” I started. “Molly. Name sound familiar to you?”  
Tom shook his head.  
“Well then you’re in luck,” I continued, “Because I happen to know just who she is.”  
“Well,” he said. “Don't keep me in suspense!”  
“I did an article on her last year.” I said. “It wasn't front page or anything, but she was the leader of the Polar gang.”  
“The Polar gang?” Tom repeated.  
“Yes. They weren’t particularly dangerous, but they considered themselves to be vigilantes, although criminals were more like it. They kidnapped children.” I paused. “But they usually do it for the money.” I said more to myself than to Tom. “and that man said they weren’t in it for the money, so that doesn't make any sense.”  
‘Any other theories?” He asked.  
“Give me a second.” Just then there was a loud noise.  
“There’s a dumbwaiter!” Tom said walking to a small door on the wall. I hadn't noticed it before as I had started talking immediately upon entering. Tom opened the door and there was a tray of food and a couple of water bottles.  
“You realize the baby is two years old, right!?” I yelled into the dumbwaiter. “She can’t eat sandwiches. We need baby food!”  
“Fine!” yelled a man. “I’ll go shopping. Close the door, I’ll send up some milk for her.”  
“So,” I said to Tom closing the door of the dumbwaiter, “at least they want us alive too.”  
I went over to the bed and sat down on it. The mattress was harder than I expected.  
“What is it?” Tom asked seeing the look on my face. He walked over to the mattress and bounced up and down on it a few times.  
“Why is it so hard?”(that's what she said) he asked for lack of a better word.  
“Exactly, help me take the covers off.”  
Together we pulled the covers and tried to push the mattress up from the frame.  
For as big as the bed was, it was lighter than we expected.  
“There’s something in the mattress.” We said together.  
“Yeah, but how are we going to cut it open?” Tom asked.  
I looked around the room for something sharp. There was nothing, then I went into the bathroom and opened the drawers. There was a pair of scissors sitting there, they looked rusty, but still sharp.  
“Tom,” I called, “Scissors!”  
We cut open a slit in the side of the mattress. Like we expected there were no springs. Nothing came out immediately, but as we reached in, we pulled out hundreds of hundred dollar bills.  
“There’s got to be more than a million dollars in here!” I exclaimed. As dangerous as I knew the situation was, I couldn't hide my excitement. This was going to make an amazing story that I couldn't wait to write. If we got out of this situation alive.  
“You sound excited.” Tom said reading my tone perfectly.  
“I can't help it.” I shrugged. “I’m a journalist.”  
He gave a small laugh.  
“We should put the covers back on to hide this slit.” I said. “Just in case they decide to come back up to check on us.”  
Tom nodded. Just as we finished fixing the bed, the dumbwaiter started up again. This time the noise woke the baby and she started crying. Luckily they had sent up a bottle of baby formula. I tried it first to make sure it was actually baby formula and the correct temperature. It was, so I picked the baby up out of her crib and sat down on our money filled mattress to feed her. She finished the bottle and fell asleep in my arms within minutes. I carefully picked her up and put her back in the crib and then slowly moved the crib as close to the bed as I could while still having mobility for myself.  
“We should get some sleep.” Tom said even though there was still light shining through the window.  
I agreed and without touching the food the man had sent up, we fell asleep next to each other on the hard bed. 

The next morning, we woke up to a loud pounding on the door.  
“Why?” I groaned, rolling over with a terrible pain in my neck and left arm.  
Tom got up and opened the door while the baby woke up and started crying.  
“What?” He asked sleepily. My eyes focused on the figure in the doorway. It was the man who hadn’t told us Molly’s name.  
“We have someone here for the baby.” he grunted. My instincts took over and I quickly picked her up and backed into the far wall. Tom stepped in front of us.  
“That’s not happening.” Tom said calmly.  
The man in the doorway could have threatened us with a gun, we basically had no leverage other than the sheer power of our will. Instead, he just shrugged. “Fine,” he grunted. “Then why don't you two come down with her?”  
“Why don't we all stay up here?” I asked viciously.  
“Because,” he replied, “I think you’ll be interested to see who is here.”  
Unfortunately that got my attention. I couldn't resist those words. “Fine,” I said slowly. “But if you try to touch her I’ll bite your finger off.”  
“I believe you.” he said putting his arms up in a surrender motion.  
Tom left the room first and I walked out right behind him. We walked down the creaky stairs and walked into the living room where three people were sitting on the couch casually drinking coffee from fancy mugs and chatting away happily.  
“There they are!” Said the woman- Molly- standing up as we walked into the living room. “Guys, meet Senator Glenn Robbs!”  
Senator Glenn Robbs stood up and walked towards us and shook Tom’s hand first, then mine. Then he leaned down to the baby and she looked away.  
“Is she your daughter?” I asked him.  
“Oh no.” said Glenn smiling.  
Tom looked as confused as I felt. “Someone explain.” he demanded and I was surprised that it worked-sort of.  
“She's not my daughter.” Glenn repeated.  
The way he emphasised ‘my’ made me want to pull out a notepad and start taking notes for an article.  
“So whose child is she?” I asked.  
“Just telling you that would make it too easy.” Said Glenn still smiling.  
“Then make it easy.” Tom growled.  
“She's not my child, but she is my wife’s.” Glenn said, the smile had fallen off his face now. “I'm running for senator, this wouldn't do well to get out, you know with the optics.”  
“So what's the plan?” I asked. “You keep the baby in this house until you’re done being senator?” The disgust in my voice was hard to hide.  
“Sarah.” Glenn said. “Her name is Sarah. I figure you’ll need to know because you’re staying here with her.”  
“Why would I do that?” I scoffed.  
“Because if you don’t, who’s going to take care of her.”  
“We’re leaving,” Tom said. “We will call your wife. Sarah’s not just your child.”  
“My wife’s dead.” Glenn said softly. “I didn't have a choice.”  
My stomach dropped. “You killed your wife?” I asked shocked taking a step back to get Sarah farther away from Glenn.  
“Of course not.” Glenn said. “I did not kill her. Myself.”  
“Why are you telling us this?” I asked.  
“Because they aren't planning to let us go.” Tom said dramatically. “Ever.”  
“Well, now let's not be so dramatic.” Glenn said doing a half smirk. “No, the reason Im telling you this is because I need your help.”  
“What?” Tom asked.  
“Not you, white boy.”Glenn said to him. He pointed at me. “You.”  
I handed Sarah over to Tom and pointed at myself. “What the hell am I supposed to do?”  
He pulled me out of the living room where we were all standing and led me through a door that attached to the kitchen.  
“I need you to do some investigation. I’ve read your work, you’re an amazing investigative journalist.”  
“Please, continue.”  
“Look,” he said pulling me away from everyone else. “There's someone after me, and Sarah.”  
“Yeah, maybe her mother’s family.”  
He ignored this. “Ever since I started running for president, I’ve been getting serious threats. And I didn't take it seriously, obviously, because someone like me is always getting threats. I mean my team does take every threat seriously, but this particular one. It’s...elegant. It wasn't written by some man in his fifties who hates my political agenda. It was written by someone who knows things that I’ve done. Everything, I’ve done.”  
“Great, so this dude is threatening to expose you for killing your wife. I support him.”  
“No, you don’t understand. It’s not just about me anymore, my daughter, Sarah- she has a stake in this too. My team is vicious, my campaign manager especially. If it comes out that Sarah is not biologically mine- well I guarantee you that my campaign manager will not let it slide as easily as I did.”  
“You literally had your wife murdered.”  
“And he’ll have Sarah murdered.” there wasn’t a drop of sarcasm or anything to suggest he was kidding. This actually scared me because up until this point he was acting like a politician, smiling, not letting us see his weak side.  
“You need me to figure out who is after you, then?”  
“Yes, but it is more complicated than that-”  
“-Without letting your campaign manager or anybody else know. Got it.”  
“Listen, I know you don’t like me-” He began.  
“No, I don’t, but this isn’t about you. And when I figure out who it is, you have to drop out of the presidential race.”  
He nodded solemnly but obviously I didn’t trust him.  
“Fine, what about the money then?”  
“What money?”  
“The pile of cash hidden in your bed upstairs?”  
“I literally have no idea what you are talking about.” Glenn Robbs said looking kind of concerned.  
I nodded. For some reason I believed him.  
“Ok, I’ll help you, but you cannot lie to me for any reason. If ever throughout this investigation I figure out that you lied to me, I will take your daughter and disappear.”  
“How do I know you won’t just do that now?”  
“Because, there’s a story, and I’m a journalist.” I gave a small smile. “But I’m telling Tom.”  
“He may have some contacts that could help.” Robbs agreed with me. “After you then?” He opened the door and we stepped back in to the living room.  
Molly and the two men were standing guard in front of Tom and Sarah.  
“So, did you two have a heart to heart?” One of the men asked sarcastically.  
“Listen, from now on, you three will protect her and Sarah. And Tom I guess.” He added as an afterthought.  
“Wait what?” Molly sounded mad. “Uh uh, this was not in our job description.”  
“Your job description.” Glenn dragged out the words. “Is to do whatever I tell you to. And Rose here is helping me, so the decent thing to do would be to give her the same protection you would give me. Right?” His fake smile was back. “I have to go now, but here’s my number. Call me with updates, and don’t say a word unless I say the secret code: We have enough copies of that. The code will change but I’ll let you know every other phone call- just so people don’t wonder about what the copies are for.” And with one last big smile, he handed me a piece of paper with his number on it and left the house.  
I still had a lot of questions. “He hired you to kidnap the kid?” I asked Molly. “And why were you guys at that gala anyway?”  
“We weren’t hired to kidnap the kid.” Molly said putting the gun in her side holster and sitting comfortably on the couch. The two men went to stand on either side of her but Tom came to stand beside me. “We were hired to bring you here. Of course Tom here was just a complication. We really didn’t expect him to need to tag along. But it’s good anyway. Having two hostages is better than one.”  
She stood up, pulled out her gun and walked towards me. I stood my ground and didn;t blink even as she put the gun under my chin and pushed it up.  
“If I find out that you are doing anything to hurt Glenn,” she dragged the gun across my cheek. “I’ll kill you. And I’ll be sure to make it painful.”  
“Good to know.”  
She took the gun off of my face and put it back into its holster. “What’s the plan?”  
“Plan?” I blanked out for a second. I’d been threatened with a gun twice in as many days and I was not looking forward to the next time. Although, to be completely honest, the gun to my throat bit turned me on a little. I would never admit that though. I would never admit that though. “Right. Plan. I usually start off with some research. You’re going to need to tell me everything you know and then I’m going to need to make some calls.”


End file.
